REARING TURKRYS. 255 



After four weeks cracked maize is mixed, and this gradually 

 displaces the meal, but is still moistened with the milk ; 

 feeding being at first thrice and later on twice a day. The 

 young woman who attends to the feeding has about three 

 miles to walk upon her round. Mr. Tegetmeier has 

 collected similar evidence from others, who do best by 

 removing the broods very early to the highest and driest 

 pastures, farthest from the homestead, and leaving them in 

 the open, any which stay about the house always suffering 

 most from disease. 



These facts are most valuable and suggestive, but do not 

 give us all the truth. It is not the fact, as Mr. Tegetmeier 

 represents, that the climate of America "is more severe 

 than our own,'' except as to the winters ; on the contrary, 

 during the rearing season it is far more uniformly warm and 

 dry. Neither is it the fact that birds reared by " English 

 methods " die, to any such extent as represented, under the 

 management of experienced rearers. If this were indeed so, 

 turkeys could not have been reared commercially at all, as 

 they have been for many years, nor could the hundreds of 

 tons have been sent over from Normandy, where similar 

 methods are pursued. Where such a system as above 

 described has succeeded in the far damper climate of 

 England it has been mostly in woodland country, which is 

 at the command of very few, or on large farms where a 

 comparatively few are reared. Americans, again, have not 

 to take fox-preserving into account. 



But there is a further matter to be considered ; for there 

 are in fact two kinds of hardiness and two kinds of delicacy- 

 involved, and there are in this respect very great differences 

 in breeds. The American bronze is often half-bred wild, 

 and seldom far removed from wild, hence it does best under 

 wild conditions. It is hardier to mere exposure ; and more 

 sensitive to tainted ground, confine* air, or other effects of 



